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DAILY GUIDE TO MIRACLES from Oral Roberts Ministries Friday, July 8th, 2006 www.orm.cc THE GOD-KIND OF FAITH Oral Roberts Oral Roberts Ministries www.orm.cc "Mark 11:22 says, Have faith in God. Another translation says, have the faith of God. Still another says, have the faith like God has faith. Now how does God have faith, and how does He use His faith? I've been studying this Scripture because the longer I live, the nearer I get to heaven. And yet the responsibilities of life are still heavy upon me—so heavy sometimes that I can live only by faith. But I cannot live by my faith alone. I must have the God-kind of faith. What is the God-kind of faith? Romans 4:17 says, God...quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. I've been trying to imagine how it was in the beginning when there was absolutely nothing, for in Job 26:7 we're told that God hangeth the earth upon nothing. Scripture says that God called those things that were not as though they were. In some mysterious way that's described as believing by faith. God saw something that was not. It existed in His faith and was as real to Him as if it were already there. And what did God see? He wanted somebody He could love, and He saw man, who did not exist, as if he did. And God called man's body out of the ground and his spirit into being. God knew that man would go away from Him. So then He called His Son to be slain before the foundation of the world for man's redemption. As we look at the things we must do to obey God, we realize that the only way we can do them is by calling them, by faith, as though they already were. That's what God did, and I believe that's what He expects us to do when He tells us in Mark 11:22 to have faith in God." What about you and me today? It's the same for us. When we believe in spite of circumstances, putting our faith into action by doing something, it moves God to bring miracles into our lives." ON DOCTRINE NOTE: Oral Roberts pushes the right Word of Faith buttons in order to propose his definition of faith, which is claimed to be the ability to create what is not. Faith is considered an entity, a commodity of power which is so great that humans can call into being those things that they desire, and is more powerful than God because He had to use faith in order to create the universe and man. Oral Roberts adopts the same teaching as his friend and former Oral Roberts University student Kenneth Copeland: "You have the same creative faith and ability on the inside of you that God used when he created the heavens and the earth."Clearly, the passage is referring to the faith that points to God as the object and the source, not faith in itself apart from God or faith that has been obtained by God from some other source. God created what was not through His own power and not the mystical use of an entity of faith outside of Himself. If God is dependant on any entity or force that is outside of Himself, then He is not God and that entity or force is God. Nothing is greater than or more powerful than God. God is not a user of faith, He is the source of faith, Romans 12:3. If Oral Roberts wishes to claim that believers are to "have faith as God has faith," and he is stating that God uses faith obtained outside of Himself, the error is apparent, because faith then becomes the dominant element and is greater than God's ability to perform without it. If Oral Roberts is claiming that believers should have faith like God has faith in His own faith, then the claim is an absurd circular statement of nonsense. Clearly what Kenneth Copeland says about faith is what Oral Roberts is trying to say about God creating with the use of faith: "Scripture says that God called those things that were not as though they were. In some mysterious way that's described as believing by faith. God saw something that was not. It existed in His faith and was as real to Him as if it were already there."Scripture says that God called those things that were not as though they were, but Scripture says nothing about that as believing by faith or that those things that were not, existed in the faith of God. That is the addition to the Scripture instituted by Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland and the numerous other Word of Faith proponents who wish for God to be a user of faith so they can claim a position as gods themselves by using faith to be creators, just like the God of the Bible: "Here's where we're gonna depart from ordinary church. Now, you see, God is injecting His Word into the earth to produce this Jesus; these faith-filled words that framed the image that's in Him... He can't just walk onto the earth and say, "Let it be!" because He doesn't have the right. He had to sneak it in here around the god of this world that was blockin' every way that he possibly could."How was "God injecting His Word into the earth to produce this Jesus?" Kenneth Copeland answers: "Jesus existed only as an image in the heart of God, until such time as the prophets of the Old Testament could positively confess Jesus into existence through their constant prophecies."So, according to Kenneth Copeland, the prophets created Jesus Christ by means of the words of the prophecies that they spoke, speaking a "Word of Faith," which brought something to pass which was in their mind, conception and through their faith. That is absurd nonsense, but Kenneth Copeland's followers don't get the picture just as Oral Roberts' followers miss the point also. Faith, in Word of Faith theology is a means to get stuff, to obtain all of those things that people don't have but desire to have. It is a means to satisfy a person's insatiable greed and at the same time consider themselves to be part of the spiritually elite, and somehow that makes it all perfectly acceptable. It is said to be the means to coerce God into providing the physical healing that everyone desires when they are ill or incapacitated. It is a useful power that allows a person to bypass the will of God in relation to those desires, and places Him in the position of a subservient genie who grants every request, because He cannot refuse when faith and proper words are used in relation to those requests. It is "Word Faith" faith that is the ultimate equalizer of man and God, because it allows human beings to exercise the same power as God, and in fact it allows human beings to act like and actually be gods, because it is said to be the will of God for that to be the case: "God's purpose and plan--the deepest desire of His heart--is coming to pass. God is going to have a family of equals!"So, when Oral Roberts says that you can call things that are not as if they were, remember that he is asserting that believers have a creative power granted to them through faith, and that what he is really saying is that believers are actual gods who, like Kenneth Copeland says, ". . . have the same creative faith and ability on the inside of you that God used when he created the heavens and the earth." But, unless believers have the actual ability to call things into being at some point, then faith, no matter how strong or pointed to those things, is a dead faith. God did not create by faith and neither will any believer be a creator in this life or the next. No matter what Oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland claim, their teaching is not found in the Bible, so it is a tale spun out of their own minds. SEE: ORAL ROBERTS "Dead Faith" "Living Faith" |
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